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Monthly Archive for April, 2006

Day 270: Upside down!!

After 5 days of waiting, Cyclone Monica in Northern Australia dissipated down to a rating 1, having dumped a heavy load of rain on the Northern Territory. A lot of minor roads were flooded but the main highway we would cycle down south on was open. We could finally fly across from Bali to Darwin, [...]

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Sponsors Wanted

Since we have decided to extend our expedition to North America, we are looking for sponsorship partners to assist us with financing. This can be either in the form of merchandise, assistance with accommodation, intercontinental flights/transport, or financial sponsorship. Below is a summary of what we can offer in return – please email us if [...]

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The Whole Hog!!

Most sane, normal people would have thought cycling half-way around the world to Sydney would be more than enough effort, pain, and tears. Well, we are not most people – hence the moniker ‘Nuts’! As we got closer and closer to Australia we realised that we were significantly ahead of schedule, much fitter and leaner, [...]

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Impressions of Indonesia

Initially we were quite daunted by the prospect of Indonesia – India had been such a trial for us we weren’t looking forward to another third world country. We were horrified to hear that as many as 90% of Indonesians carry some form of parasite – in fact our guidebook advised “Never, ever, under any [...]

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Day 264: Bali

By the time we reached Bali we realised that we would have to depart Indonesia from here, as our visa would expire in the next 7 days and the ferry frequency would leave us ‘visa-less’ in either Flores or en-route to Timor. We had heard that there was a cyclone in Northern Australia (which means [...]

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Day 257: Bubbling Bromo

Our appetites whetted for volcanoes in Krakatau, we next headed towards the sulphur-spitting Mount Bromo – a ‘must-see’ in Java, and in fact all of Indonesia. The entire Bromo region is like a prehistoric scene – one almost expects to see dinosaurs walking around… It consists of a vast volcanic crater-bowl, 10km across with sheer [...]

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Day 255: Wonders of Central Java

Hugging the north coast and then swinging down south into central Java, we arrived in the city of Yogyakarta (or Jogja, as the locals call it). It is a popular tourist destination that is considered to be the very heart of Javanese culture and handcrafts. All classical Javanese arts (batik painting, wooden and shadow puppet [...]

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Day 250: Krakatau

For us in Europe when you speak of Indonesia most people think of aromatic coffee, the resort island of Bali, and the loudest ‘bang’ in the history of the mankind – Krakatau. It had been a childhood dream of Nic’s to one day visit world’s most famous volcano – ever since seeing the disaster movie [...]

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Day 248: Oh! Jakarta!

We spent a day in Pekanbaru, deliberating over the difficult dilemma of how to cross Indonesia. The facts were: 1. We had to cover 4000kms 2. We had to do a minimum of 6 ferry crossings from island to island to get to Timor (some ferries only running once a week or less frequently) 3. [...]

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Day 244: Slow boat to Sumatra

We caught the highly efficient Singapore ferry from the World Trade Centre, to the Indonesian island of Karimun – a slightly unconventional jumping-off point for Sumatra, but much nicer than the traditional stop-by island of Batam, just off the coast of Singapore. In true Singaporean style our departure at the ferry terminal was highly clean [...]

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